Pets
All players enter the dungeon with a starting pet depending on their class. Most classes will start with a kitten or puppy, the exceptions being the Thief/Rogue who start with a baby monkey, and the Barbarian/Vandal who start with a wolf pup. Abilities Pets will follow the player and attack creatures for him/her, gaining levels normally. They can carry an astonishing amount of stuff. Go ahead and give that tiny kitten those 3 leather armours you just found! Starting cats, dogs and wolves (but not monkeys) are somewhat unique in their ability to help the player identify if an item is cursed. Jackals, werewolves, and hellhounds (among others) have this ability too. When walking near an item that is cursed the kitten or puppy may growl at the cursed item, revealing the cursed attribute. If you give an item to your dog or cat, and it is cursed, he or she will drop it, providing a handy way to identify cursed items. Fetching will cause your pet to growl or hiss at the item if it is cursed, and will pick it up if not cursed. This is the quickest method of pet testing your items. Cats and the monkey can climb ladders. Monkeys (as well as tame Water Nymphs and Leprechauns) have the ability to steal from monsters. This can be very useful when timed right against dangerous weapon carriers like Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Giants, Balrog etc. They are however also quite weak and therefore tricky to keep alive. Solution: make them steal then run, and have potions handy or ideally the Clean Wounds or Healing spells. Feeding Pets must be fed periodically or they will soon turn hostile after reaching the starving status, reported in game as weak with hunger. When a pet is hungry, it will automatically consume monster parts and safe potions. As you may accidentally lose something useful this way, it is best to keep your pet well fed at all times. Once a pet is fully satiated, it will not accept any more feeding except for potions. If a pet is hurt, it will consume healing potions that are in its inventory, identifying them for you. This is a better way of identifying potions than feeding them to them when they are dead. Taming New pets can be gained by: *Reading a scroll of taming near a creature *Summoning a creature by reading a scroll of create monster or zapping a wand of create monster after learning the Beast Mastery talent *Freeing a prisoner. * Feeding certain animals as dogs when they are near. This is achieved by bringing up the pet interaction menu (default hotkey P) when the creature is near. Be careful not to feed them the wrong foods - extremely toxic mushrooms work as well as a complete giant pie. * Mesmerizing them with a Lute of Charming, then feeding them. * Reviving creatures who have died while being mesmerized. * Howling when in Werewolf form (or having a pet Werewolf do that), which summons one or more pet Wolves. * of v.1.3 Hatching Eggs found in the dungeon, which have a chance to bear tame hatchlings. * Mesmerized young creatures (by Lute of Charming) turn into pets when they grow. * Holding a long sword or a double sided axe and reading a scroll of enchant weapon while confused. * Polypiling * Wishing for most any monster (red dragon, balrog, lich, gold golem) will give the message, "There you have it." and give you that creature as a pet. However, this will only give you one creature, so sometimes it is better wishing for 3 eggs or 3 blessed scrolls of create monster (especially when you have a method of taming or Beast Mastery) Equipment Some pets may equip armor and weapons. Pets who can use equipment are generally humanoids with torsos, heads, arms and legs. If they wear cursed items, passing them scrolls of remove curse does not help, as they will not read them. However, shooting the equipment wth a Wand of Cancellation may sometimes uncurse the item. The spell *remove curse* does also remove curses from your pets equipment if the pet stands nearby. A (somewhat) easy way to remove cursed items from pets is to let them die, and pick up the items from the ground or the pet menu BEFORE reviving them. Pets who can use equipment will equip weapons/armor they are given or pick off the ground themselves. Equipment types pets may wear by themselves include helmets, collars, armor, cloaks, weapons and boots. Equipment types pets may not wear by themselves include rings and amulets. of v.1.3 However, you can directly order them to equip almost any equipment that they carry (with the usual size and type restrictions). Since the Power Vortex can load wands and even overload them to make them explode it comes handy to equip a pet with quite emty wands before they encounter the Vortex. That way you can also load the cancellation wand, to ensure escaping vortexes continuously. Another method of removing cursed items from your pets is to polymorph into a Water Nymph and steal it from them, or fishing up a Water Nymph from a fountain, telling your pet to attack it, and hoping. Reviving Pets who die of starvation will lose the 'tame' status and be hostile to the player after dying and will refuse to accept any item fed to them. Dead pets who were tame when they died can be fed them any Potion of Healing, Potion of Extra Healing or Potion of Full Healing, even Potion of Wine to revive them. The spells Clean Wounds and Healing may also be cast on dead pets to revive them. Pets revived in this way will remain as tame or hostile as they were before they were revived. Dead pets will vanish if left unattended for long enough. They cannot be picked up. Tame creatures that don't leave a corpse simply can't be revived, including all undead (Skeleton Hounds, Zombies, Mummies etc), Leprechauns, Vertices, Elementals, Pixies, and Constructs (Golems). Ladder Management Pets that cannot climb ladders can sometimes be difficult to manage, especially when they fall down ladders that span multiple floors. To retrieve a pet that has fallen multiple floors down a ladder, simply climb up a level, and the pet should teleport to the level below you unless it has engaged in combat. To stop a pet from falling down a ladder and engaging enemies before you, you can order the pet to run away before you climb down. Closing doors on the top level can prevent non-humanoid pets from running too far. of v.1.3 Equipping pets with a Collar of Jaunting will greatly simplify ladder issues. Notes *Tamed White Witches (prisoner) and Pixies have the ability to cast lightning on hostile creatures. *Pets who are polymorphed will not revert to their original form when killed. *All dead dogs/cats generated in the game show the pet menu even if they were never your pet. This may or may not be a bug. *As with most menus in game, the buttons on the pet menu can be accessed with the number keys (e.g. 1 for attack, 2 for fetch, etc.), so rebinding the pet menu hotkey (default P) to something more convenient can significantly speed up pet commands.